


Scared To Say (I Love You)

by puckinghell



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Elias is scared and Brock is a jock, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-01-31 06:29:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21441736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puckinghell/pseuds/puckinghell
Summary: Brock is huge. Like, all big muscles and giant arms. And he’s always wearing tank tops that makes him look like your typical frat douche, and he’s always wearing a snapback, which Elias has learned is bro-code for “I’m too cool to do my hair, even though I spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to get my hair to come out from under my snapback in the most fashionable and perfect way”.And Elias is a gay Swedish exchange student. So, come on. Staying away from jocks was probably put into his system by natural selection.
Relationships: Brock Boeser/Elias Pettersson
Comments: 18
Kudos: 187





	Scared To Say (I Love You)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why but I realized I really like writing college au but only for brock/petey.
> 
> This was based on a tumblr post that I have since lost, that was about an unlikely friendship between a jock and a lesbian. If I find it again, I'll link it.

So, as a rule of thumb, Elias tends to stay away from jocks.

It’s nothing personal. He knows the guy standing in front of him and, that guy has never done something to him personally, it’s just…

Well.

Brock is huge. Like, all big muscles and giant arms. And he’s always wearing tank tops that makes him look like your typical frat douche, and he’s always wearing a snapback, which Elias has learned is bro-code for “I’m too cool to do my hair, even though I spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to get my hair to come out from under my snapback in the most fashionable and perfect way”. He’s also super, super popular.

Like, everyone knows his name, he’s friends with the entire student body on Instagram - not that Elias has checked, or anything – and every teacher and student alike, knows his name.

And Elias. Elias is a gay Swedish exchange student. So, come on. Staying away from jocks was probably put into his system by natural selection. Or whatever.

And it’s not like he’s never around these guys. He plays hockey, so, he spends a lot of time in locker rooms that are filled with so much overblown testosterone he might grow another set of balls simply from inhaling the feromones.

He thought, for a second, about quitting hockey, just to avoid these bro jocks. But hockey is like breathing to him, and leaving it behind felt a little like tearing out a piece of his liver and throwing it down the drain. Or maybe something more important, like lung. People can live with a little less liver. Elias cannot live without hockey.

So he thought of a defense mechanism, of sorts. He’s got the Swedish accent and he’s pretty good at staring stoically ahead and ignoring his surroundings, so he decided that when he’s in the locker room, he doesn’t speak English.

He gets away with it, too. On the ice, he just yells a few words that need to be yelled during the game, like “Go” or “Watch out” or “Here”. Simply banging his stick on the ice or yelling a guy’s name usually works well enough that words aren’t even really necessary. And off the ice, guys have stopped attempting to pull him into conversation.

He overheard two of his teammates, Jake and Troy, both dumb as a sack of rocks but not necessarily bad guys, talk about him when they thought he wasn’t there.

It went a little like this.

\---

“Dude, I tried to talk to him but he literally won’t even look at me, it’s like I’m air!”

“Maybe he doesn’t know you’re talking to him. I don’t think he speaks English.”

“How does he not speak English? Isn’t he studying here? How is he passing exams if he doesn’t speak English? I’m failing everything, and I speak English!”

“You only barely speak English, Jakey, and you’re failing because you’re not very bright, and you never study.”

“Hey, fuck you.”

\---

And that had been the end of that. Ever since then, most of his teammates just ignore him, apart from when he scores and they tap their sticks against his shin pads to show their appreciation.

Elias is fine with that. Scoring feels great, and he can celebrate that even with teammates he wouldn’t trust with his roommate’s sad houseplant.

So, like, he’s fine. He stays away from jocks, hangs out with his nerdy roommate Quinn, who just plays video games all day and sleeps on the couch even in the middle of the afternoon, and does his homework. He wouldn’t say he’s making the most out of Canada, but he’s not wishing for more. Life is going fine.

Which is why he doesn’t necessarily need one of his teammates to start following him around like a lost puppy.

Elias doesn’t know what’s up with Brock. Granted, Brock has been the only one of his teammates that hasn’t given up on trying to talk to Elias yet. He’ll speak very slowly, and use a lot of hand motions – like pointing to a water bottle, while repeatedly saying “water, you want water?” as if Elias lacks brain power instead of English vocabulary – but he’ll always say something to Elias, whether it’s during warm ups or when he’s passing him on the bus or in the locker room.

But he’s never followed Elias to class after practice in the morning.

“Weather is nice, huh?” Brock asks, pointing to the sky and Elias looks up.

The sky is gray, covered with dark clouds, and it looks like it could snow any minute, which is not what Elias wants, because snow makes him think of Sweden, and that makes him miss home.

He stares at Brock for a solid ten seconds and when Brock starts getting visibly uncomfortable, he fixes his gaze straight ahead.

Brock is kicking the ground as he walks, and Elias would love to snap at him to pick up his feet, but that would probably betray that he does, in fact, know English words, so he doesn’t.

They enter the classroom. English is one of many classes they have together, but usually they sit on opposite ends of the class – Brock in the back, like a typical jock, and Elias in the front, because then nobody will bother him – so they don’t spend a lot of time together.

This time, however, when Elias sits down at his table, fully expecting to be left alone, Brock sits down next to him, looking uncomfortable as a fish in a tree.

Elias can’t focus, and spends the entire class wondering why the hell Brock is sitting there, staring at the board like he gives a shit, and glancing over at Elias every now and then, before quickly returning his attention to the professor.

Class has never gone so slowly and Elias is mentally already running out when the bell finally rings. He throws his book and notebook in his backpack and is already standing, one foot out of the metaphorical door, when Brock clears his throat.

“Uhm, so, I was wondering…” he starts, “if you needed help, with this class? Since you don’t speak English very well, and, it’s an English course…”

And, well, fuck.

Now Elias feels bad, because that’s actually really nice of Brock to offer, and although he’s certain there must be some kind of ulterior motive, it would be too harsh, even for Elias, to keep up the act, now.

“Thank you,” he says, in perfect, although accented, English. “But I’m okay. This class is more about reading than speaking anyway, and my passive English is a lot better than my active English.”

It’s almost comical, the way Brock’s eyes widen, as if they could drop out of his head at any moment.

“You speak English?” he stutters, and his cheeks color red. “Dude, I’ve been acting like a fucking idiot, haven’t I?”

And, Elias could say yes, because that’s the truth, but that would probably be mean, considering it’s at least partly Elias’ fault that Brock felt like he had to act like an idiot.

“It’s okay,” Elias says graciously, and he swings his backpack over his shoulder, ready to escape this awfully awkward conversation, when Brock kinda steps into his way, seemingly trying to keep him in one place.

Elias fixes him with a stare and immediately Brock flushes red to the tip of his ears.

It’s tragic, really, Elias thinks, that someone so dim can be so pretty. If only Brock did not dress like he never grew out of high school, and he didn’t throw in a “dude” or “bro” in every sentence, and he was just generally a bit smarter, Elias could be into him.

As it is, it’s good that Elias is _not _into him, despite being able to admit that he’s kinda hot – objectively, smoking hot – because jocks are bad news, especially when you’re gay, and lanky, and have a funny accent.

“I just wanted to…” Brock starts, then cuts himself off as he mutely points to Elias’ now empty table. “You had a notebook…”

Oh, fuck.

Elias _does _have a notebook, a notebook that has a very clear, very bright rainbow on it. Usually, Elias doesn’t like to wave around the fact that he’s gay, but his sister had gotten him this notebook right before he left.

“Be yourself, out there, Lias,” she’d smiled. “And then they’ll all love you.”

He’d promised, and then gone to Canada and not made true on any of those promises, but he carries the notebook with him as a reminder of her words anyway.

He really hadn’t planned for Brock to see it.

Suddenly, he feels a bit hot under the collar. Brock is on his hockey team, and if he tells, Elias might have to quit hockey, and that’s something that he _really _doesn’t want to do.

“Your notebook, with the rainbow?” Brock continues to awkwardly stammer. “I, uhm, I wanted to say, yeah. Cool. Me too. You know?”

And that’s a lot for Elias to process, and he’s not really sure if his grasp on the language is good enough to understand what this could mean, but before he can take the time to think about it, or even ask Brock something, Brock holds out a fist for him to bump.

It’s so stupidly jock, so dumb, and yet, out of a mixture of shock, surprise and a healthy amount of fear, Elias bumps his fist against Brock.

“Cool,” Brock repeats. “See ya at practice, yeah?” And then he basically runs away.

Elias is left staring after him and wondering what the hell just happened. He’s still wondering by the time he makes it home and Quinn is in the kitchen, with black smoke coming out of the oven.

“What happened?” Elias asks, glad for a distraction from his own strange day, and Quinn shrugs: “Tried to make grilled cheese in the oven, but I forgot and it was in there for about two hours.”

Elias spends the rest of the afternoon trying to get the smell of smoke out of the house, and praising himself lucky that he even has a house left standing at all.

\--

From that day on, Brock speaks to him even more. He doesn’t speak slowly anymore, although he speaks kinda slow still, but he does that with everyone and Elias thinks that’s just to give his brain more time to decide what it wants to say.

Elias doesn’t think he’s told the rest of the team, nor that Elias speaks English or that he’s gay, because none of the team is acting any differently.

He’s grateful for that, of course, but it’s also a little weird and he’s not sure how to deal with it, or how to deal with Brock.

It’s warm up and Elias is shooting pucks at Thatcher Demko, their goalie, when Brock skates up and comes to a halt next to him.

“Thatcher is a very American name,” says Brock, as if his name isn’t literally _Brock_, which might be the most American name Elias has ever heard, “I bet you never heard that in Sweden.”

And Elias could keep up his mute act but it’s only Brock around and he already knows, so he shrugs.

“No.”

It’s just one word but it seems to encourage Brock, because the corners of his mouth turn up into a smile and his eyes crinkle.

“You know, now that I think about it, we have a lot of American names. Jake, Troy, Thatcher, Bo…”

“Brock,” Elias interrupts.

“Yeah?”

“No, I mean… Your name is Brock. That’s very American.”

Brock’s eyes light up as if he’s never thought of that before, but the idea entertains him greatly.

“Oh, yeah!”

And Elias is convinced Brock must’ve been born with brain cells, but apparently they were all knocked out during hockey games.

Brock nods contently. “Yeah, lots of American names, you know, for a Canadian team.”

“Right.” Elias isn’t sure where this is coming from or where exactly it should go, but he decides to focus on the puck again. It zips over Demko’s shoulder and into the netting.

“Nice shot, dude,” says Brock. “So, like, how do I pronounce your name?”

And… Nobody has asked Elias that before. Not in Sweden, because it’s such a common name there, and not in Canada, because nobody really seems to care; they just kinda guess and hope it sticks.

Maybe that’s why Elias feels his resolve crumble. Maybe that’s why he turns to Brock and says his own name, slowly, focusing on pronounciation.

“Elias.”

“El-i-ass,” Brock echoes, and it sounds like a weird, drunkenly mumbled version of his name, so Elias laughs.

“No. Elias.”

“E-li-as.”

And just like that, Elias gives up on any American or Canadian ever pronouncing his name right.

He rolls his eyes but he’s still smiling. He can’t stop, despite really wanting to.

“Just call me Petey,” he says. “That’s what my friends at home called me.”

The smile Brock gives him is almost blinding.

Normally, during the game, if his teammates want his attention, they’ll yell “Forty!” or, some of them, “Petts!” because it’s shorter than Pettersson and also, the double T and double S probably scare them.

But this time, when Elias is flying down the ice, he hears “Petey!” accompanied by some very insistend stick smacking, and he dishes the puck to his side. Not even one second later, the horn sounds, and the puck is in the back of the net.

“Fuck yeah, beauty!” Brock hollers as he lets his giant body crash into the boards and lifts his arms in celebration.

And for the first time, Elias glides over and bumps into the boards next to Brock. He doesn’t touch him, not at first, but then Brock’s arm is slung around his shoulders, and a bunch of bodies dressed in blue are crashing into the two of them seconds later, and something light lifts in Elias’ chest.

Maybe, he thinks, not all jocks are as bad.

\--

Brock is a strange guy.

That’s something that has been clear to Elias from day one, but it’s even more obvious now that they, like, _talk_.

One day, they’re sitting in a history class. The white board is broken and the professor is cursing softly under his breath while he’s trying to fix it. Elias is drawing in his notebook, not really paying attention, and Brock is sitting next to him – because they do that sometimes, now – doing God knows what, when the professor says: “This would be so much easier with a wrench” and Brock goes: “Oh, wait!” and pulls a wrench out of his backpack.

Another day, Elias is in the library, studying and ready to set the entire building on fire because he cannot deal with another hour of this, when he spots Brock standing near one of the book cases. Brock catches his eye, holds up a book and raises a questioning eyebrow.

Elias has read the book, and it was pretty good, so he nods, and Brock mouths something that seems like “Yes!” and does a fistbump in the air.

The point is, Brock is a strange guy, but he’s wiggling his way into Elias’ life, tangling their days together, until it’s weird when Elias goes a day without seeing him.

On the ice, they’re great together; Elias’ points are nearly all bound to Brock, and he knows Brock’s PPG has been going up since Elias joined him on his line.

“Petey, baby, what would we do without you!” Brock hollers when Elias scores the game winning goal, and he crashes his big body into Elias so hard Elias nearly topples down.

“Fuck, Boes, don’t break his legs, we need him with two legs,” Jake chides, then fondly slaps Elias’ helmet. “I know you don’t have a clue what I’m saying, Petey, but fuck, I’m happy that you’re on my team.”

Right, Elias thinks, his teammates still think he doesn’t speak English. When Jake skates away again, he catches Brock’s eyes, but instead of the silent judgement he’s expecting he just finds Brock smiling at him. He lightly taps his stick against Elias’ legs and says: “We’re all happy you’re on the team, Petey.”

And Elias curses his heart for being such a traitor, and fluttering the way it does.

So, on the ice, Brock isn’t weird; Brock is just another hot blond jock with silk mitts and great edges, who puts home all of Elias’ passes and goes after guys who hit Elias a bit high or late, and they work together like magic.

Off the ice, Brock is weird, but Elias somehow still wants him around all the time, still looks forward to those few minutes a day where they have some kind of contact, even if it’s just a smile while they cross in the hallways, and, well, Elias knows himself well enough to know when he’s screwed.

Everything was so much easier when he was pretending to speak only Swedish.

\--

“Hey, Petey!” Brock’s voice sounds far away, and when Elias turns around Brock is jogging towards him, which would be less weird if they weren’t in the middle of Tech class.

Elias leans on his table and frowns. “Yeah?”

“I have a question,” Brock asks. He sounds a little off, like his cheery tone is just a front, and he looks a little pale, with dark circles under his eyes.

“Do you know how to help someone with a panic attack?” Brock asks, and Elias frowns.

“I think so,” he answers, because in high school, he had a friend who suffered from panic attacks and he once explained Elias everything he should and should not do when someone has one.

“Cool,” says Brock, eerily even. “I think I’m having one.”

Only then does Elias notice that Brock is breathing too fast, too shallow, and that his hands are kinda shaking, despite the fact that they’re balled into fists by his side.

“Fuck, Brock,” he breathes out. “We’re in the middle of _tech class_.” And Brock’s face falls, and suddenly he looks like he’s about to cry, so Elias jumps up, grabs Brock’s hand and pulls him into the hallway.

The hallway is empty, everyone being in class, and Elias has barely closed the door of the classroom behind him when Brock sinks to the floor, his back against the wall. He tucks his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around his legs.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, then repeatedly: “Sorry, Petey, fuck, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Elias feverishly searches his brain for the advice his friend gave him, back in high school.

_Make them feel comfortable, safe. Remind them they’re not a burden. Remind them how to breathe_.

Fuck, how is he supposed to do any of that?

“You’re okay,” he says, stupidly, then remembers that Brock has always been a touchy guy, in the locker room and on the ice, so he puts his hand on Brock’s arm.

He can feel the muscles tight under his touch; they’re strung like a fiddle, as are his shoulders, his jaw.

“Can you breathe with me?” he asks, and when Brock’s eyes remain fixed on the floor: “Hey, Brock, look at me.”

Finally, Brock does; his eyes are watery and his pupils too wide, but he nods slowly and starts matching his breaths to Elias’.

Elias tries very hard to breathe slowly, and every now and then, he’ll mumble something stupidly useless, like “it’s gonna be okay” “don’t worry” and “I’m here”.

Slowly, but surely, Brock’s breathing evens out, the tightness runs out of his muscles and eventually, he sags further into the wall and drops his head against Elias’ shoulder.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “I think I’m okay now.”

“Have you ever had a panic attack before?” Elias asks carefully. He takes his hand away from Brock’s arm, but lets his body sink a bit closer to Brock, so Brock knows he’s not trying to get up.

“No,” Brock answers, truthfully. “I wasn’t even sure if that’s what was happening, I just… I didn’t really know what to do, so I went to find you.”

And that’s… Elias doesn’t really know what to say to that, but he’s really happy that Brock came to find him instead of figuring it out on his own.

“Is there anything in particular, stressing you out?” he asks.

Brock starts telling him about exams, and how nothing he’s trying to study seems to stick in his head, and how he’s driving himself crazy with hours spent at the library with nothing to show for it, and then, finally, the essence of the story comes out.

“If I don’t pass these exams, I’m not gonna be able to play hockey anymore, Petey.”

Brock’s voice is a little shaky and Elias can almost feel his body slip into panic again, can hear the tight short breath Brock struggles to take in, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s wrapped his hand around Brock’s knee.

Brock exhales, and the tension slips away again.

“I just don’t know what to do,” he says, sounding hopeless. He seems… defeated.

Elias has only ever seen Brock happy, like an overexcited puppy, and he might’ve thought it was a bit too much, but now that it’s gone, he would do literally anything for Brock to go back to being his cheery, loud, boisterous self.

“Maybe,” he offers, “we can study together a bit? I can explain what I know and we can try to figure the rest out together.”

Brock’s face lights up and his entire body seems to lenghten, his eyes glowing with something Elias can’t quite put a finger on.

“You’d do that for me?” Brock asks fondly, and Elias shrugs.

“Sure,” he says, but what he means is, “Anything for you.”

\---

Elias is laying on his back in the grass, staring at the blue sky, and it’s quiet around him.

He had his final exam a few days ago, but he’s still around campus because he hasn’t gotten his grades yet. As soon as he does, and knows he’s passed, he’s going to Sweden to spend his Christmas there. They have two weeks off, which is enough to fly back and forth.

Elias is excited; he’s not seen his family in a while and he misses them dearly. He’s also excited for Swedish food and hearing people talk in Swedish and even for the snow that is the weather app tells him is covering his hometown.

But there’s also something nagging at him, something that is stopping him from being fully excited.

He hasn’t talked to Brock in a few days.

At first, he thought it was cause they both had exams, and Brock was surely stressing out for them. He texted him good luck and asked how it went after, but those texts went unanswered. Even then he didn’t worry. Brock would surely text him after his final exam.

But that exam was yesterday. Elias knows this, because he checked Brock’s schedule – yes, it’s lame, but he’s lame and he’s accepted it - and yet, no word from Brock.

It’s cold outside, and his breath comes out in little clouds of air. He wonders how long he can lay on the grass like this before freezing to death. He wonders if someone knows, and if they do, how they found out.

“Petey!”

The voice is loud and familiar and Elias sits up so quickly his head spins, but his eyes immediately fix on the source of the noise.

It’s Brock and Jake and Troy, all together, none of them wearing proper coats because they’re idiot jocks and coats aren’t jock fashion.

Elias pulls his own coat a bit tighter around him.

“Petey, Petey,” Brock repeats, and Elias notices he sounds happy; his entire face is beaming, radiating excitement. “I passed!”

Then, everything happens very quickly.

Elias opens his mouth to say congratulations, realizes Jake and Troy still think he can’t speak English, shuts his mouth, and Brock launches himself towards Petey, crashes into him as they both fall back against the grass.

The frozen ground is hard in Elias’ back, but Brock’s big body is warm and heavy on top of him.

“I passed, fuck, Petey, I passed!” Brock repeats quietly in Elias’ ear, like he can’t quite believe it himself, and his warm breath strokes against Elias’ cheek and Elias swears he might pass out.

He’s always known crushing on jocks is a bad idea.

“He doesn’t know what the fuck you’re saying, Boes, stop being weird,” Troy scolds above them. Elias can’t see him, because he’s got Brock’s hair falling in front of his eyes, but he can hear the horror in Troy’s voice.

That’s when he decides enough is enough.

He softly pushes against Brock’s shoulder, and when Brock pulls himself off of him, he smiles and says: “Congratulation, I told you you could do it.”

Jake says something that sounds a lot like “motherfucker” but Elias can only focus on Brock, beaming down at him.

“You did, you believed in me. You’re the only one that believed in me, Petey, I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Elias thinks that’s a bit overdramatic, seeing as they only studied together a handful of times and often, he didn’t have an answer to Brock’s questions, but Brock sounds so genuinely truthful he just smiles back and says nothing.

“You _speak_?” Troy asks bewildered. “Brock _knew_?”

Brock turns around, then. “Yes, he speaks English, and yes, I knew, because I’m better than all of you assholes and I actually tried to get to know him. Now, go away so I can talk to my best friend.”

Jake lets out an indignant noise. “I thought I was your best friend!”

“I thought I was,” Troy says, and then they start arguing.

Elias feels his heart beat in his throat, and everything inside of him suddenly feels very warm, despite his surroundings being so cold.

“You’re all my best friends, but I’m trying to talk to Petey here. Go away.” Brock looks at Jake and Troy and seems to convey a message with that look, because both of them suddenly deflate.

“Yeah, yeah, okay, see ya later, Petey,” Jake says. “Fuck, I can’t believe he knows what I’m saying.”

“No one knows what you’re saying, Jake,” Troy says, as they’re starting to walk away. “That has nothing to do with language, but you just never make sense.”

“Sorry,” Brock says, as soon as Jake and Troy are out of ear. He finally slides away from Elias, sitting down on the grass next to him. He’s still close enough that his leg is touching Elias’ and Elias finds it hard to focus on anything else.

“About what?” he manages to say.

“About Jake and Troy finding out.” Brock’s eyes are fixed on him, studying his face. “But you don’t seem upset. Are you?”

And Elias, well, he could probably deflect, Brock wouldn’t push him, but he _wants _to talk about it suddenly, wants Brock to know that part of him.

“Brock, does the team know you’re gay?”

Brock’s cheek flush but he’s resolute when he nods. “Yeah, I told a few of them and said it was fine for people to know and it kinda trickled through. I’m pretty sure everyone knows now. Why?”

And Elias just blurts it out. “I didn’t wanna talk to them, to any of you, really, because I was scared that you’d all make fun of me.”

Brock looks almost hurt by the idea. “Petey, why on earth would we do that?”

Elias shrugs. “I’m gay and Swedish. I talk funny. I don’t know all the words. My arms and legs are too long for my body. I don’t look strong and tough like all the hockey guys here. I’ve known a lot of jocks in my life, Brock, and none of them have been very nice to me.” He pauses. “So thank you for being my friend, I guess, is what I’m saying. I’ve not had many.”

Brock is staring at him intently. When he speaks, he sounds so fiercely sincere, that a lump forms in Elias’ throat.

“Petey, you’re so nice, and funny, and smart, and you’re great at hockey. How could I ever not want to be your friend? How could _anyone _not want to be your friend?” He bumps his shoulder into Elias’. “If anyone gives you shit about anything, let me know. Let the team know. We’ll take care of it.”

Elias decides against asking what exactly that entails. He might’ve, if he hadn’t gotten distracted by the way Brock is looking at him: blue eyes filled with something he recognizes as curiosity, and mixed with something else.

Brock is looking at Elias like he wants something.

“Petey…” Brock says, then corrects himself. “Elias.”

And it sounds _almost _Swedish, not quite there but close enough that it’s obvious how much Brock has worked on it.

“I mean it when I say I want to be your friend. And if that’s all you want from me, then that’s what I can be.” Brock pauses. His cheeks are red but Elias isn’t sure if it’s from the cold or from what he’s about to say. “But I also want to be more than just your friend.”

And so, as a rule of thumb, Elias tends to stay away from jocks. Or he did, anyway. But now he’s looking at the boy in front of him, blue eyes honest and open, a careful smile on his face, and he decides some rules were meant to be broken.

He leans in and kisses Brock, straight on the mouth. Brock kisses him back right away, leans into him and tugs him closer.

There’s a voice, in the back of Elias’ mind, that reminds him that this is not a good idea: people are around, people could see. But then he hears another voice, echoing through his brain.

_Let the team know. We’ll take care of it._

And fuck, Elias believes it.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @puckinghell on tumblr!


End file.
